Monday, March 2, 2015

My short story, Minotaur, is the featured story of the week at Luna Station Quarterly.

During an archaeological dig on the Russian taiga, prickly Noani uncovers something stunning, something unbelievable... If only she survives long enough to show the world.

LSQ is a quarterly zine filled with speculative fiction written by women. And while you can read all of the stories in issue 21 for free online, LSQ has their first-ever print issue available. Please support female writers!

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Another issue of 101 Fiction is out! This time, I've got one tiny tale in the black-and-white-themed issue, 'Aumakua. Hawaiian gods and troublesome little girls!

The other stories are really wonderful, especially W.M. Lewis's Celebrity. Gobsmacked by this one. Read it!

The Husband is posted at my DA account, since it's original home, The Corner Club Press, appears to be defunct. "The Husband": I took a nap, and when I woke up, the dog on my chest had become a husband. Speculative fiction about Sudoko, drumming, and, er, friendliness. ;)

Exclamation points and emoticons! Have I been body-snatched by a teenage pod alien?

And one more, if you're in the mood for a bit more reading today: the November issue of Bloodbond is out, with short stories and poetry about shape shifters, and it includes my story, "In the Northern Territories." Werewolves, my friends. Werewolves. They can be great neighbors, as long as you abide peacefully.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Alban Lake Publishing, home of Aoife's Kiss, a magazine of specfic, and publishers of stand-alone horror and SF novels, has just released "Bloodbond," an anthology of werewolf, vampire and shapeshifter fiction and poetry. Included is my short story, "In the Northern Territories":

Calvin Kilfoil shot the wolf that had been coming around his farm--but come morning, it is not a wolf, but his wife's body laid atop the kitchen table. Faila's father had never been fond of his daughter's husband, but is this murder? He watches Calvin--watches, and waits, along with the rest of the small, isolated town deep in the northern woods. Because blood will *always* tell...

GREAT selection of stories! I just finished reading, and I was really blown away by a couple of them. If you want some good, shiver-inducing fiction, and you want to support a small, independent press, there's no better way to do it than by buying a copy of Bloodbond today!

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

I'm trying to cultivate an awareness of privilege. It's like
cultivating an attitude of gratitude, a very overused and trite phrase (or has
it become trite due to overuse?). At any rate, it occurred to me recently how
privileged I am. Sometimes, I think we associate that word with Beverly Hills
housewives, or wealthy white men in suits looking down their old noses at us
from the cover of Forbes. But really, if you look at the world in general, I
have a very privileged life.

If I want to download a book to read on my ipad, click,
I have it. I stopped working one day a week because it stressed me out, so now
I work four days. I can turn up the thermostat if I want, although if B is
home, he might complain about being too hot—but not about the money it costs to
keep me cozy. I have a cabinet with three shelves, loaded with tea and coffee
products. I have a table that has no use except to hold my seasonal decorations
and—another sign of privilege—our Bose sound dock.

We have a brand new kitchen. And not a cheap one—it's got
quartz countertops and a pull-down faucet and soft-close drawers and sliding
drawers and a heavy-duty lazy Susan, which we use for all of our pots.

Still, I complain about what I haven't got, what I want and
can't have right now, and about other things: I'm lucky to have a job, when so
many don't, and yet the clients irritate the shit out of me. I adore my
animals, but sometimes, I just don't want to deal with them. I have sneakers
without holes in the bottom, but I want new ones.

Buddhism is letting go of "want." Maybe not at its
core, but that's a tenet. In some ways, so is Christianity—let go of
"want," and the Lord provides. A financial counselor on Oprah used to
advise that we cultivate a mindset in which we already have everything we need.
Which we do, on a fundamental level (many don't, I realize, but for the
majority, and certainly myself, we do).

It seems small, this writing of things I have, and even
smaller, the list of things I want. Not the lists themselves, for they are
almost endless. But what do I really want? Would I like a childhood do-over, in
which my mother never dies? Do I want my beloved grandparents, her parents, to
still be here? It's only been a few years since losing them, and I think of
them often, and miss them. Do I wish for my favorite dog back, the one creature
so devoted to me that I found that I had never understood the word
"devotion" before—and probably have already lost its meaning, lost to
the tide of "want."

Our souls are so small. Some say they are vast, that they
are the universe itself. I feel that that is correct, and yet, the universe is
so small. Everything is so tiny, it fits in a marble in my hand—that's how it
feels.

And perhaps this is depression talking now, reducing things,
because joy and the largeness of that joy are its opposite.

I cannot understand the size of my want or the solidity of
my soul, and I cannot tell sometimes sadness and grief from love and love and
more love. So this is all I can do today: make a list of what I have, and try
not to think of what I want and do not have. And I have two hands to write
this, and a computer to write it on, and dogs snoring next to me, and hot tea
(although, bleh, I bought it and this one's not so good—see how I go, all the
time? with the complaining?). It's an exercise, much like just living every day
is. And exercise. At which I will, apparently, never become proficient. I'll
drown the want of my desire to be a great writer in another document, and
today, in just this minute, I will try to be satisfied. And grateful.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

The doors slid shut behind him, and the sounds of the
casino—the jangling slot machines, the piped-in music of nineties
superdivas—disappeared, muted by mahogany paneling and plush burgundy carpet.

The room was long, no chairs, with a desk at the end, tall
and narrow. A woman stood behind it, black hair hanging down her back and
catching the glow of the wall sconces.

She turned as he approached, and smiled. Jack paused, steps
from the desk. She was two women. Or rather, one woman with two heads. No, that
wasn't right either.

Each woman wore a blouse, ivory, sheer, with a lace collar
and three tiny buttons, the blouses stitched together at the chest. The women
faced each other, the distance of an eyelash between them. He could not see
below the desk. He felt uncomfortable wanting to.

"Mr. Gray?" said one.

Jack nodded. So as not to stare, he watched their hands; each
used a hand to rifle through a stack of unmarked envelopes, fingers dancing along
white creases, plucking one from the rest. The one who had spoken used her left
hand to open the envelope, and the other used her right hand to remove a key.

"Here you are," said the one on the right.
"Good luck, Mr. Gray."

He took the key with unease.

She gestured to a door on the left; her twin echoed the
gesture.

The door opened onto an elevator. Jack stepped inside, and
an attendant dressed in livery, as if he were a chauffeur, smiled and nodded.

"Mr. Gray," said the man, tanned and wrinkled
beneath a black cap.

The door shut on his last glimpse of the women.

"Beautiful," said Jack, not knowing what else to
say.

"Beautiful, yes. But only one heart." The man
shook his head. "Two people cannot have one heart."

The door opened.

"We're here?" said Jack. "I didn't feel it
move."

The man smiled. "You have your key?"

Jack nodded.

"Good luck, Mr. Gray."

He stepped into a narrow hallway, with another attendant,
this one dressed less elegantly: the bulge of guns beneath his cheap suit was
excessive, comic.

"That's a lot of firepower, considering you can only
fire one at a time," said Jack.

The man shook his head. "Two." He withdrew two of
the pieces, both hands turning the guns simultaneously.

Once. Now he'd much rather have a nice, medium-rare chateaubriand,
steaming on the plate, meant for two but all to himself.

The sight of her, however, dressed in cream-colored silk
behind a sleek, ebony desk, caused in him a pang, a longing for something warm,
and soft, and sweet on his tongue.

A chef in a white coat stood beside a small cart, a glass
bowl of chocolate before him. He unwrapped a stick of butter. She motioned to
the chef, and before he dropped the butter into the chocolate, he presented it
to her. She drew a finger across the top and tasted it.

The door shut behind him.

"Mr. Gray," said the woman. "Won't you sit?"

"You can call me Jack, Charlotte," he said, and
took the chair in front of the desk. "I promise, I won't think you're anything
but business."

"Why would you?" she said. Her gaze was cool; her
hair, not nearly as black as the women's in the lobby but still dark, dark like
the chocolate in the bowl, was tucked in a neat twist at the nape of her neck.
There was a tattoo there, he knew, an ostrich feather.

As she twisted her head to pull a file from a drawer, he saw
it then, except it wasn't a feather any longer, but two swords, one up, one
down.

She drew a single sheet of paper from the file. Without
looking at it, she said, "My. This is quite a bit of money you owe
us."

He shrugged. "I'll pay it back soon. Tables have been
bad, that's all."

"Are you saying that the casino has rigged tables? Or
that they are somehow sub-standard?"

"No, of course not. It's just... things haven't exactly
gone my way lately. But they will soon." They always do, he thought. The
coin always flips. "Your father let me run a house tab."

"We've extended your tab eight times this month
already. And my father no longer owns this casino."

Beside them, the chef lifted the spatula, inspecting the silky
fall of chocolate. Satisfied, he removed the bowl from the flame.

"A little more time, Charlotte. That's all I'm asking. Things
will change."

"When your luck changes?" She stared at the bowl.
"Chocolate, sugar, butter. It's not just the ingredients, you know. It's timing
and skill."

He swallowed, turning the key in his palm.

The chef cracked two eggs, and added a sprinkle of salt. He
stirred and poured the batter into a silver pan. The bowl scraped clean, he set
it down and took up the pan, presenting it to Jack.

"Your key," she said.

"We used to have crepes every morning, and scones.
Lemon, blueberry... And your cakes... Caramel. Coconut..."

He implored her with his eyes, willing her to remember when
they'd been young, willing to her to recall nights he'd come to her, flush with
his winnings, and her apartment smelling like cinnamon, her skin tasting like
vanilla.

The elevator attendant's words came to him: Two people cannot have one heart.

He dropped the key atop the batter. It sank, vanishing from
view.

The chef took the pan with Jack's cake to a door that slid
open, revealing a room with an oven at the center, and all around, on every
wall, shelves, and those shelves laden with cakes.

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

My short story, Midnight Swim, won the monthly challenge over at WerewolvesAtHeart. June's theme was "Escape the Heat!"

"Midnight Swim": In the basement of a safe house, Finn struggles to keep cool as summer temperatures rise outside. When the full moon comes and he decides to slip out for a late night stroll to a nearby beach for a swim, he finds that he might not have made the best decision, for his own personal hunter has found him, and she never goes anywhere without her weapon...